"I was like, 'Oh, s**t -- I did f**k up,'" he admits.
Kevin Hart wishes he would have handled his 2019 Oscars hosting controversy differently.
The 40-year-old comedian is featured on the cover of Men’s Health's March issue, and inside the magazine, he opens up about choosing to back out of his role at last year's awards ceremony. He announced he was stepping down as master of ceremonies in December 2018 after facing controversy over resurfaced tweets from nearly a decade ago that included homophobic slurs.
"I’m a firm believer in laying in the bed that you made," Hart explains. "If there’s something that you did, then you did it. You know, there’s no wiggle room around it. You can address it, and then you can move on."
"With the whole Oscars thing, there was a big gap between what I thought the problem was versus what the problem really was," he continues. "I got 10 years where I made sure not to joke or play in the way that I did back then because it was a problem. I don’t care if you’re gay or not gay. I’m a people person. I'm going to love you regardless."
Hart says it wasn't until a few of his close friends -- like Wanda Sykes, Lee Daniels and Ellen DeGeneres -- talked to him that he truly understood how he mishandled his response to the resurfaced tweets.
"Then I was like, 'Oh, s**t -- I did f**k up,'" he admits.
As ET previously reported, the 2020 Oscars, taking place on Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, will go without a host for the second straight year.
"There will be no traditional host again this year," ABC Entertainment President Karey Burke said at the winter Television Critics Association press tour last month. "Repeating what worked for us last year: huge entertainment value, big musical numbers, big comedy and star power."
"A lot of incredible elements have already come together that have convinced us that we are going to have an incredibly entertaining show," she added. "Our goal is really that. Our goal is to present the most entertaining show possible and the producers have already put together a plan for what is going to be an entertaining telecast."
As for Hart, he is continuing to speak about the 2019 controversy in Kevin Hart: Don't F**k This Up, now streaming on Netflix. Throughout the six-part documentary series, Hart admits that his frustration with being labeled homophobic led to short-tempered responses, which only increased the backlash against him.
"What I thought it was it wasn't, and my approach to dealing with it because of the assumption that I had is just wrong," he says, noting that he realized that he "missed an opportunity" after further reflection and conversations with his aforementioned friends and team members. "I missed an opportunity to say simply that I don't condone any type of violence in any way, shape or form to anyone for being who they are."
"I f**ked up," he adds. "Instead, I said, 'I addressed it.' I said, 'I apologized.' I said, 'I talked about this already.' I was just immature."
Hear more on this year's Academy Award nominees in the video below.
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